For Wilshire Baptist Church
I don’t go on the Nextdoor app very often, but I get email notifications and occasionally the subject or first few words of a post will get my attention and I’ll read further. That was the case with this recent post by a neighbor I don’t know in a neighborhood that is not mine:
“Sometimes, when I need a brief respite from my kids, I drive to a nearby church & … well, just kinda chill there. I tell everyone I’m going to take a time out & church parking lots became my time-out spot. Far enough from my house that I can take a few deep breaths to myself & close enough that I’m not anxious about being too far away. Sometimes I listen to music or read books. Sometimes, I have a snack. Sometimes, being an adult is hard & I zone out, staring off into the distance for a moment.”
I don’t know what intrigues me more about this little story: the fact that the woman escapes to find respite from her children, or that she finds it in a church parking lot. I get the family thing; families are loud, busy and messy. I’ve never been a parent, but I know just from being a kid that it can be too much sometimes. Meanwhile, there’s no parking lot more quiet and under-used on a weekday than a church parking lot. Some churches find ways of using their empty pavement for other things during the week – farmers markets and meeting points for Meals on Wheels, blood drives and other great activities – but most are vacant.
I have no way of knowing whether this neighbor attends a church, but I tend to think she doesn’t and definitely not the church where she is parking. So, I wonder if she knows there may be respite inside the building as well, especially on Sundays? But then again, maybe like too many people, she has been turned off by the church. Because let’s face it: churches, like families, can be loud and busy. As an introvert, this is something that strains me at times. There have been Sundays when I’ve arrived at the parking lot and wanted to drive on by. And in fact, there were Sundays in my early adult years when I did. My inner voice would say, “I just can’t deal with all those people today; I can’t handle all the energy and activity. I really do need a day of rest.”
That may be a reason why some churches have struggled to come back to full attendance after the pandemic. People who found respite in staying away from the crush of people during the lockdowns may have found a new happy place of respite — whether it’s at the lake or the park or simply staying home.
Churches also are messy in that they are filled with people who live messy, complicated lives. If we’re honest, we don’t go to church because we’re perfect or even OK; we go because we’re broken and need the kind of mending that can only be found in a spiritual connection. As the neighbor said, “Being an adult is hard,” and we need help from the one who created us. We also go because we want communion with God in community with others. We want fellowship. Even an introvert like me needs and wants fellowship from time to time.
The hard work of the church today is to convince people there is real respite to be found inside the building. Unfortunately, the Nextdoor neighbor found something different on a recent visit as her story continued:
“Awhile back, my time-out spot was chained off at the entrance. One day, I could pull up & park, but now a lock & chain prevented me from being able to. I was so sad. Don’t they know I gotta hide from my kids sometimes? Lol!”
I’m glad she could laugh out loud about it, but the sad truth is that church people can lock folks out on Sundays. We can become so engaged in what and who is familiar that we “lock out” newcomers, new ideas, new ways of being church together.
I’d like to think we’ve been pretty good about keeping the chains and locks off at Wilshire. I look around on any given Sunday and see as many people I don’t know as people I do know. New people have discovered us, found their way inside, and have found us to be a good place to find respite and a time out from the challenges of everyday life. What’s more, they’re helping us discover new ways of being the church.
Thankfully, the neighbor’s story has a good ending:
“I haven’t taken time out in a while, but today I drove by & guess what? No chain! No lock!”
The neighbor didn’t say whether she started going back to the parking lot. If that was my church, I’d pull into the parking lot myself one weekday and see if I could coax her to come inside. I’d tell her that inside we do everything she enjoys doing in the parking lot: chill (be still); take deep breaths (pray and meditate); listen to music (hymns and anthems); read books (Bible and commentaries); snack (communion and fellowship meals); and zone out, staring off into the distance.
That last one is difficult to find a parallel for Sunday morning, except perhaps a way to “zone out” is to set aside our own troubles, look out beyond ourselves, and find ways to help others. Sometimes the best mending of our messy lives comes when we turn the focus off ourselves. Churches like Wilshire do that through mission efforts that help feed, clothe and shelter others.
To do that, we have to follow the lead of the neighbor on Nextdoor; we have to leave our own house and at least go to the church parking lot. From there it’s just a short walk inside to see what’s going on and maybe find out how we can get involved.